Making and studying solids is a rapidly expanding branch of chemistry. Solid-state chemistry is becoming more and more important as its relevance is recognized to subjects as diverse as optoelectronics and heterogeneous catalysis. There has long been felt a need for an authoritative account of the properties of inorganic solids and of the methods for studying them, written at a level suitable for final-year undergraduates studying the subject as a special topic or for first-year graduate students embarking on research in the field. This and a forthcoming volume will fill that gap. The present volume - now made available in paperback for the first time - concentrates on methods for preparing solids and studying their structures and physical properties, while the other will survey compounds with particularly important or useful properties.

The present volume concentrates on methods for preparing solids and studying their structures and physical properties while the other will survey compounds with particularly important or useful properties. Among the methods described in this book by experts active in the field are diffraction and vibrational, electronic, photoelectron spectroscopies. Bulk measurements such as conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, and calorimetry are also described, along with theoretical modelling of crystal structures.

`... this is an indispensable book.' Angewandte Chemie